I closed her file, hands shaking. I really didn’t know how to process that. Someone else had been gifted like me? She’d killed herself because she couldn’t control it? I started to put her file back, but a cluster of papers slipped out and fell into my lap.

Just like with Hayden’s file, I didn’t really believe what I saw at first. But then, like everything else, it sank in slowly. Dizziness and nausea rushed through me. I dropped the file.

Newspapers clippings about Dad and his work at the hospital before the accident, articles I couldn’t bear to read after he’d died. A schedule was attached to the clippingmy sophomore year class schedule. But that wasn’t all; there were directions to my house, to Dad’s hospital, and… Oh, my God.

Attached to the newspaper clippings was a menu to Salt of the Sea, the restaurant I’d insisted on the night of the accident. Scribbled on it were several datesthe last of them, the date of the accident, was circled. Realization crept over me like cold fingers tracing down my spine. The papers slipped from my fingers.

Static filled my ears. For several long minutes, I couldn’t move, couldn’t even breathe as my world fell out from underneath me.

No, no, no.

The handwritingall of the stuff writtenlooked like Hayden’s scribble. He’d been watching way before he’d admittedhe had written the schedule, the directions, the date of the accident. It hadn’t been just Kurt or Cromwell. It’d been the three of them, maybe all of them.

Time seemed to stop, and then I sprang forward and gathered up the papers. My breath came out in short, little gasps. I needed to get out of hereget Mom, find Olivia. The buzzing in my ears made it hard to think, but all I knew

“What are you doing?”

I shrieked, jumping to my feet and spinning around.

Hayden stood in the entrance of the study. Little streams of rain dripped from his hair, traveling down the side of his face. The ends of his hair curled around his temples and cheeks.

“Ember?”

My heart pounded so fast I swore my shirt fluttered.

“What are you doing in my father’s office?” He took one step into the room, then another. “Why did you leave school?”

I eyed the door behind him and tried to nudge the drawer shut. It wouldn’t budge. “I… I’m not doing anything.”

“Call me crazy, but I don’t believe you.” His gaze dropped over me, then behind me. His eyes narrowed. “You went through my father’s files?”

“Nno,” I stammered.

His eyes flicked up and bore into mine. “You went through our files, didn’t you?”